Friday, December 31, 2010

Well in just three hours and twenty minutes ( at time of writing of course) 2010 will be coming to a close and we will be welcoming 2011.

Of course some places in the world have already welcomed in 2011 which means they are now in a different decade to us ( don't think about it too much you'll probably get a headache :-)

Although as Grumpy pointed out when they invented GMT time as the "central time" for want of a better term, why did they come up with a system where some of the world was ahead of us in time. Why wasn't it worked out that everyone was behind us?

I'm sure mind you there is some indepth technical reason as to why this is the case but I can't be bothered to think of it right now as I'm too tired!

Well one thing we'll have to welcome in the new year is a 3.5 pence rise in the price of petrol with a fuel duty hike and the VAT rise combined! That means the average price around geektown will be 1.28!

Of course I also couldn't welcome in the new year without my final day of work, which turned out to be a much harder slog then I anticipated with my patience once again being tested to the upmost!

Still I don't have to worry about that again until Tuesday.

I suppose all I have left to do now is to draw a close to another year on The Grumblings of a Geek by thanking all of my regular readers and wish you a happy new year and may 2011 bring you all you desire.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

With New years fast approaching there has been a steady increase of adverts on the TV for slimming products, i.e diets, supplements and fitness DVDs as many peoples thoughts turn towards new years resolutions.

Well we saw a advert last night for one of those yoghurt things which are supposed to help digestion. They were produly announcing their new slogan of " Out with the old, in with the new".

Five minutes later Grumpy and I were still have a very childish fit of the giggles. As we had both seen the unintential funny side of that slogan.

Mind you what wasn't funny is that whoever came up with that was probably paid more money for it then I earn in a year!

Well one more day before I have to go back into work. For the sounds of things there are no local New Year eve church parties this year so it will probably be a night at home unfortunatly.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Okay, I'm not what you can call easy to miss. So it's somewhat annoying to go into a a shop and not be acknowledged by the staff or asked if I need any help.

It's even more annoying when you go into a shop wanted to buy something specifically and they don't ask you if you need help.

It's even worse when you actually go into the shop twice and they still don't ask if you need assistance!

Yes I didn't have a especially good day shopping even if I did manage to get the two dvd's and CD I was after, as I have decided that it was time to join up with near enough eveybody else and get a mobile phone that can actually access facebook and the internet at large. Even if I barely get any calls or text messages these days at least I can access facebook and see what everybodys doing.

Or at least I would be able to if the shop assistants hadn't ignored me. grrrrrr.

I'm making the most of my break right now as I only have to go into work on Friday and then I don't have to be back in until next Tuesday. For a week of lates, followed by another week of lates.

Although to be fair the second week of lates is my fault as I swapped with one of the girls who due to bad timing would have ended up with three consecutive weeks of lates over christmas and the holidays and into new year and so she was pretty much done in and to cut a long story short I am a sucker for any damsel in distress :-)

Monday, December 27, 2010

Well I better watch what I say from now on as there have been two recent additions to the sphere of Blogging.

Grumpy now has his own blog which you can find here ( see I've told people now you don't have to keep remind me) His blog is called Musings of a YAP. What's a YAP? Well it's in his words a Young Aged Person as he refuses to accept that he's a OAP.

Secondly Tap Dance has started her own blog as well Rambings of a Grandma can be found here. She has literally only just started mind you so there is only one post right now, and that's just of a photo. But there will be more posts soon.

Friday, December 24, 2010

It's been a busy week, really really busy. Work as you can imagine has been totally manic especially with us finally joining the rest of the country and getting some heavy snowfall on Wednesday which meant three of the team were stopped from getting to work at the worst possible time.

So between that and the overtime I've been putting in I've been pretty much ready to drop when I've got home, which is why there's been no posts for a little while.

Still that's over now, it's Christmas eve and as I type this I can see out of the office window past the illuminated tree Grumpy has in the window into the dark outside and seeing all of the snow outside it's hard to deny that the christmas spirit that I haven't been feeling that much this week is coming back really quickly.

The other thing to note is unless we have major thaw over night we're actually going to have a white christmas! Yah!

Tomorrow morning will probably be spent in the usual way, getting up late, having breakfast, opening presents, watching the Muppets christmas carol and then dinner!

So I hope where ever you are readers that you have a very Merry christmas and Santa brings you all of the presents you want.

Monday, December 20, 2010

I knew this week was likely to be quite tough with the run up to christmas and all. What I wasn't expecting was to find my patience being tested to the utmost less then a hour after work started and I still had the rest of the shift to go!

The only plus point and I hesistate to call it a plus point is that everyone else is exactly in the same postion, all finding their own ways to make it through the week. Not to sound cliched of course but it is one of those times when teams all come together and you look our for your colleagues and help where you can as even the smallest thing can help lighten a big burden.

It's also been very cold, we might have had no snow but the temperature dial was almost down in double figures again this morning which makes getting out of bed even harder!

Still there's now only four days to Christmas!

Yah!!!

Here's hoping that my store of goodwill won't be totally empty by then.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Well the countries in dis array, roads are blocked and airports closed with thick snowfall everywhere.............

Well not quite every.

Yes folks the weather null zone which seems to surround Geektown is part to full power as we seem to be about the only place which hasn't had snow over the past few days.

Although it's been cold, very very cold. In fact when I left for church the temperature dial in Grumpys Car was at a impressive -8! The temperature only got all the "way up" to -2 by mid day. So the central heating has been cranked up all day.

Church was very good today, even if we didn't have a Sunday school teacher. I don't know what it was but there seemed to be more of a Energised spirit for want of a better term through out all of the meetings.

Well even though we didn't get any snow I know a lot of other places have which means one thing and one thing only.

We're going to be having a very interesting week at work.

Still they've declared it non uniform all week which will be good and after Friday I only have to work one day between Christmas and New Years. Granted it is New Years eve, but it's short opening hours and I'll be done by 4pm. So that still gives me plenty of time for.....

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Here is my old bedroom door. In case any of your are wondering the large plain patch is down to a time when there was some muck on my door. Tap Dance decided to use a cleaner to get rid of said muck which proved to be highly effective. It totally got rid of the muck.

And as you may have noticed it also got rid of some other stuff as well :-) And why am I showing you a picture of my old door?

Well because I have a new one ( it's been a long day so my inspiration is a bit lacking right now just in case your wondering why I'm talking about doors)

And mine isn't the only door which is new. All of the upstairs doors have been replaced which means the landing now looks a lot bigger.

Also it's now obivous it needs redecorating asap! I guess I know what we'll be doing in January!

Monday, December 13, 2010

First off a Random and somewhat puzzling thing I have noticed when it comes to facebook status updates. I do a update saying I'm fed up and in need of a hug I get nothing, zero, zilch nada. No comments from anyone.

I do a update saying how I hurt my knee and shoulder when Owen pulled me down a frozen slope Sunday morning and I get two likes from people.

So it seems that people don't notice if I'm depressed and in need of a hug but like it when I get injured?

I think that might be a thread I really don't want to pull at.

Work today was, well it was pretty much insane. One of the girls on my team had a particuly difficult morning and looked to be on the verge of tears. I decided to try and cheer her up and went and got her a cup of tea and her favourite choc bar as a surprise to cheer her up. At which point when I gave them to her and explained why I had got them for her, she promptly declared she was going to cry and rushed out of the office leaving me standing there with a couple of glares from people who obivously wanted to know what I had done. I tried to vainly mumble a excuse before realising that I probably wouldn't win and just resorted to muttering that one phrase that all men will have uttered at somepoint in their lifes" I don't understand women"

Joking aside I did feel really, really quilty until she came back and assured me she was okay. The guy who sits next to me couldn't resist the urge to tease me about it for the rest of the morning saying I had nobody to blame but myself for feeling guilty if I would go around and upset girls by giving them free chocolate.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Just when we thought things couldn't get any more busier or "interesting" somethings come along which has thrown a complete set of wild cards into the mix at the worst possible moment. Still at least it means work is never dull and seeing as we can't really sit under the desks all day and ignore the phones ( but that would be good) we'll just to have to look on it as a good learning experience.

Speaking of learning experiences out printer has currently packed up. But not in the sense of it can't print anything, more like it won't print anything and had a falling out with the computer as the computer has suddenly started to insist that the printer is no longer connected even when it is!

So I'm kinda trying to fix it without giving into frustration and throwing the darn thing out of the window. Or againist the wall. Or smashing it with a hammer, or generally just destroying it in whatever satisfying way occurs to me at that moment in time.

The temperature has risen a lot today, there was even a rumour we were no longer in minus figures. This means that the snow has gone but according to the weathermen the cold snap will be back next week. If their right.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Everybody was in a great mood this morning a work as it was so much warmer then it has been outside. It was all the way "up" to -3. Which is a bit of a stupid statement if you think about it as it's still really cold, but compared with yesterdays dip into double digits it very postively warm.

With several countries across Europe on Bank Holiday today we had a much quieter day and some valuable time to get caught up. Of course this probably means we'll get totally slammed tomorrow but c'est la vie. It's almost Christmas, so being busy goes with the season.

And we're also getting another dress down day tomorrow which is great as that means with the standard dress down day on Friday we don't have to wear our uniform for the rest of the week and I don't have to iron any more shirts for the rest of the week either! Which admitially won't save me a massive amount of time but at least it will save me the hassle.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Well we had something which I'm 99% certain we have never had before in Geektown. The temperature plummeted so badly last night it actually got into double figures.

Which meant de icing the car was even more of a nightmare then yesterday. I decided to try the de icer and immediatly gave up when it didn't make a shred of difference. In fact I think it may added to the ice.

I also had to wrap up rather warmly as it was so cold as well. I put on my usual shirt, a jumper, then my suit jacket, then my winter coat with a hat and gloves and I was still cold! My teeth didn't stop chattering for quite a while. I was just glad my coat isn't white otherwise I would have been doing a darn good impression of the mitchelin man!

This extreme cold meant I was even more gobsmacked when I got on the minibus to see one guy get out of his car in just a short sleeved shirt! I couldn't believe how anyone could only be wearing a thin shirt.

Still the cold has had one plus side in that we're getting another non uniform day tomorrow as it's a lot easier for people to wrap up warm in their own clothes as opposed to their uniforms.

One of the guys from our team is extremly on eedge right now as his wife is pregnant and he due date was today! He's twitching everytime he hears a mobile or the bosses phone go. But you know he has good reason, it's going to be a very testing and emotional time.... fortunatly his wife will be there to help him through it :-)

Monday, December 06, 2010

Having to de ice the car first thing in the morning is nothing new. I've done it umpteen times before and no doubt will do it umpteen times again in the future.The journey to work has often started with the smell of de icer in the morning.

What I haven't face before is ice on the inside ( yes the inside!) of the windscreen that was so thick I had to use the scraper on it! The outside was even worse and took nearly 15 minutes of de icer and scraping to clear.

Still despite the rather icy start to the morning it wasn't that bad a day over all. In fact for a Monday it was postively easy. Which has left me with the lingering worry that maybe we're being lulled into a false sense of security for the week.

But even if that happens, c'est la vie. It's almost christmas and things are bound to get busier. And a whole lot more difficult if this bad weather keeps up. But again if that happens it happens.

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Well you know what, we might actually be getting near to Christmas. Even with all of the snow it hasn't felt that christmassy but as it's December we've starting singing christmas carols at church and what do you know? It actually started to feel like Christmas is almost upon us.

Of course this christmas feeling could only lead to one logical outcome.... and that is going into the loft to get all of the decorations down. Which is a lot easier to do now we've had boards put down up there, well at least in the sense of accessing the loft. The main issue I've been facing is trying to figure out where everything is and whats in what box!

It was a bit of a nightmare trying to get to church this morning as despite the large amount of thawing yesterday, temperatures plunged back below freezing last night which meant there was a awful lot of ice. Rather then having to first worry about defrosting the windscreen I had to worry about defrosting the door so I could get it open!

Which is probably a issue I'll have to face tomorrow as I'm on early shift this week.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Well it's finally stopped snowing. But that's only because the temperature has gone up so it's been raining instead. Which although helping a lot of the snow to melt has kinda made things a bit damp and depressing. Granted the snow was cold and a absolute pain to drive in but at least it made things look pretty.

And that paragraph once again proves that no matter what the weather is like here in the UK we will never be satisfied with it.

I've spent most of the last couple of days christmas shopping and I'm glad to say that I have all but finished. Although my current problem is where to store everything as there's a fair bit.

Although my christmas shopping yesterday was interupted when the whole shopping centre had to be evacuated due to a car fire in the multi story car park!

Also I saw what most be one of the weirdest franchise style shops ever. It's basically a shop where you can go in and get a foot massage. I'm sure your thinking that's not so weird in fact it might even be good after a long day of shopping. Well you haven't heard what does the massaging yet. You go into the shop, you put your feet in a tank of water where a shoal of fish then basically eat the dead skin from your feet. And this massages you feet apparently.

A couple of thoughts spring to mind, firstly who put their feet into a shoal of these feet and discovered this and secondly who saw this and thought wow that would be a great thing to operate as a franchise/chain of shops. I've never seen the shop have more then one or two people in it. They would probably make more money from charging the people who looking through the windows to watch.